


Dead Ringer

by fwooshy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Severus Potter-centric, Background Relationships, Divorced Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, J. D. Salinger - Freeform, James barely shows up (but he's talked about a lot), M/M, POV Albus Severus Potter, POV First Person, Same with Scorpius, San Francisco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26254732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fwooshy/pseuds/fwooshy
Summary: Albus attends his brother's wedding in San Francisco.
Relationships: Albus Severus Potter & James Sirius Potter, James Sirius Potter/Original Male Character(s), Scorpius Malfoy/James Sirius Potter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Dead Ringer

**Author's Note:**

> The entire plot (except the ending) is directly lifted from J. D. Salinger's "Raise the Roof Beam, Carpenters". A few lines are paraphrased as well. I highly recommend J. D. Salinger's work; this is but a shallow copy of its depth. I'd also say that the "essence" of this work is different than J. D. Salinger's, as both are character studies of one character, and J. D. Salinger's Seymour is a very different character than our James Sirius Potter.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

If you're reading this, I'm sure you're well-acquainted with my family, be it by accolade or by scandal. Far be it from me to understate the prominence of my family in the wizarding world, my father being the one who saved it from itself before he could even grow a proper beard. My mother had been famous in her own right too, proof of which hung proudly in our living room at Godric Hollow in the form of a nearly comically large Harpies poster, but she'd quit flying before I was born, so that by the time I’d left for Hogwarts, she’d became known more for her husband and brothers and brothers's wives than the meager column-lines she contributed to the Quidditch section of the Daily Prophet.

I'm sure you can imagine the sort of resentment that builds up in a woman consistently outsized by those she ought to have loved most. I for one have never envied her. It was only natural to be unbearably aware of your own shortcomings when your immediate family, in-laws or otherwise, included the Head of the DMLE and the Minister of Magic herself. On occasion I've felt the same shadow of inadequacy in the brilliance of my own siblings, so you can say that I understand why she divorced my father.

But this isn't a story about Ginny Weasley. This is a story about my brother, James Sirius Potter, and his wedding that I attended in the year of 2029.

I'd just turned twenty-three. I was renting out a flat in east London in one of those new complexes that nestled comfortably between two Muggle buildings but managed to remain entirely wizarding, so you could take Floo calls while watching Muggle telly without any Muggles blowing up. (Don't ask me how the magic works; just thank my Uncle George.)

That particular morning, the morning that my story starts, was a morning rather similar to any other. I woke up with the sun. I brewed coffee and toasted bread, and then I sat at the counter, eating and drinking my breakfast thinking about what ought to be done in the day, and coming up with nothing. And then I noticed Lily's grand old barn owl tapping at the window. She'd named him Morgana.

I unlatched the window and Morgana hopped in with a wary stare. We'd been reacquainted as of late, but he was still sore; he'd been my owl too before Lily had claimed him after the divorce, and he'd never quite forgiven me for abandoning him. I passed him the rest of my toast and unfolded Lily's letter.

"Al," she wrote in her untidy scrawl, "Jamie's to be married next week. I know - shocker - but not really, is it? Jamie's always done exactly what he wants, fuck the rest of us. I've met the fiancé only once before and I couldn't say I cared for him, he barely spoke two words in the Floo call, only sat there looking pretty (no surprise again - this is our Jamie, after all). The fiancé - I think his name is David Vaunderand or something awfully American like that - had the finest silver-blonde hair, the most delicate of cheekbones - rather like a greyhound, or a whippet, but a dog would have had more personality, I'd say. I suppose I shouldn't sound so sore; the fiancé's probably perfectly pleasant, and it's Jamie's fault, like it always is, that he couldn't get a word edgewise. You know how Jamie is, just talk and talk and talk and then - surprise, his fifteen minutes with you is up - he's gotta go!

“I've ragged on for too long already, so let’s cut to the chase. I've written to you explicitly to implore you to _please_ attend his wedding. You _absolutely must_ . It wouldn't be proper for Jamie to have absolutely no one on his side in attendance, even if all he has is our wretched family. I would but we're at the tail ends of an incredible experiment that I absolutely must stay for, and even if I didn't I doubt I'd get the visas in time; if only Jamie had the foresight to inform me earlier, then I could have moved around my schedule, but you know that's never how Jamie does anything. Merlin forbid anyone in this family inform anyone else of their comings and goings. And don't try to pawn this off on to Hugo or Rose - you know why we're the only ones who could possibly attend. So please, if you are in any way still my brother, please, please, _please_ , I'm on my knees my dearest Al, _please_ attend your brother Jamie's wedding on Saturday, August 23rd, 2029, 2PM, at the Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco, CA. - Lily”

I folded the letter back up and slid it to the corner of the counter, adjusting the alignment until it ran flush against the ledge. Then I picked up the letter and read it again.

James and I hadn't spoken in four years. But Lily couldn't go, and she knew I’d nothing else to do anyway. You heard right - nothing. Some would call me a wastrel, the government, unemployed - my mother, "my poor child of divorce". I would say I'm a writer. But it wouldn't wholly be inaccurate to categorize myself and my siblings as "poor children of divorce". I don't think either of our parents fully anticipated the destruction that their dissolution would have caused, otherwise they would have gritted it through til death, for our sakes. Still, dissolve they did, and dissolve we all did. James had been thinking of transferring to a Quidditch team in California anyway, but once the divorce broke it might as well have cinched it. I was 18 and only a week into my Potions apprenticeship and Lily was away at Hogwarts, so it only felt right for me to follow Jamie abroad. We shared a two-bedroom flat in San Francisco for a year until I'd finally had enough of him and stormed out of our flat with a hastily packed valise intending to come back the next day, or the next week. But a week bled into a month and a month bled into years and eventually I found myself in San Diego, where I spent another two years half in taquerias and half on the beach until I'd finally run out of money. Then I'd Portkey'd home.

So in some ways I was the only one who could go, even though we hadn’t talked in years, even though I was absolutely certain that my presence would be unwelcome. And yet part of me still yearned to be with my brother on his wedding day. As with anything to do with Jamie, my feelings were complicated.

Morgana hooted. I startled. My hand was balled in a fist around the letter. I dropped it and smoothed the letter back out, before folding it up again. Then I shooed away Morgana.

***

On Saturday morning I took two Portkeys to the Ferry Building in San Francisco. All of San Francisco was an Anti-Apparition zone, so I crowded on the Muggle tram for thirty sweaty minutes until it dropped me off two blocks from the Conservatory of Flowers. By then it was 1:55PM. An older woman guarded the entrance. She was wearing a pink hibiscus sundress and white Birkenstocks. "I'm Maggie Reynolds. Are you with the groom or the groom?" she chuckled, and before I could take out Lily's written letter and hope that it passed as a formal invitation, she continued, "It doesn't matter anyway since they're mixing up the sides; just take what you will."

I took one of the last open seats in the back row and sat down, feeling the flimsy white folding chair sink under my weight. Maggie soon joined me, as the wedding was just scheduled to commence.

The wedding was outdoors under the big blue California sky, the altar a lavishly floral arch before a stately white building that I assumed was the Conservatory of Flowers. Pastel pink and yellow roses draped behind each chair, lined the aisles up the stairs to the arch, crowned the bridesmen and maids waiting at the top of the stairs, so thick with scent I felt sick. There was nothing Jamie about this wedding. My palms started to sweat. For all I knew I'd crashed some stranger's wedding.

And then a hush spread among the seated as we all watched the mother of the groom (not my mother, obviously; she hadn't been invited) stomp down the petal-lined path and up the stairs. She picked up the microphone, her voice wavering. "My sincerest apologies, on behalf of the family - the wedding has been delayed. You're all welcome to come to our residences at 253 Lyon St to refresh yourselves while we wait for a resolution."

Then she rushed down the right to where her husband was waiting for her in a pink-and-yellow rose-ladened car.

"Well," Maggie announced beside me, "I wouldn't worry, it wasn't like he invented cold feet. Nothing to do except wait. I think I shall take up the Vauderand's offer and wait at their residence. Have you been to their mansion? You're in for a real treat. Come with me."

"Alright then Maggie, lead the way," I said, standing up. I'd come all this way, I might as well follow through. The wedding had been going too smoothly anyway, I should have expected Jamie to come in and muck it up.

We followed the throng to the roundabout that cabs had started pulling in to. Guests piled into cars in no particular order. It was hot and hard to hear - there were probably over two-hundred guests in attendance - but I kept sight of Maggie, whom I've started to identify as a sort of tour guide - and managed to squeeze in the last seat of a cab alongside her. There were four others in the car besides us and the driver. A younger guy in a printed button-down and slacks sat shotgun. A larger woman I recognized as the Matron of Honor sat in the middle row next to her husband. I shared the last row with Maggie and an older gentleman, who was already asleep.

"I knew this would happen," the Matron of Honor said impetuously, immediately addressing the elephant in the room.

"What happened?" Maggie asked.

The Matron of Honor turned around in her seat to look at us in the back row. Sweat beaded on her forehead and her eyeliner was already running, but she was handsome otherwise, with her creamy brown skin, strong jaw, and light hazel eyes, despite the disgust smeared over her mouth. "Cold feet. Of course it was that good-for-nothing James. I told David a million times that there was something wrong with him, but he always defended him, said he had a rough childhood, like that excuses all bad behavior."

"Everyone gets cold feet. I'm sure they'll figure it out," Maggie said soothingly.

The Matron of Honor rolled her eyes. "I should hope not. David's better without him. Oh, if I could get my hands on James - then I'd show him, oh I would -"

"Honey," her husband warned.

She continued, undaunted. "I mean, who says that? That things between them are going _too perfect_ so that's why they couldn't get married? Who says that? Who says 'oh let's just delay the wedding a week, it's too perfect today, I'd rather go to the beach'? Never mind the two hundred guests, some who had to apply for visas and ask for time off months in advance. Fuck the guests! I suppose he can, they're not even _his_ guests, he's got only a handful of Quidditch teammates and absolutely no family on his side."

I couldn't help but snort. Who would do that, she asked? Why Jamie, certainly. He'd always done exactly what he wanted, and it'd only gotten worse since he stopped having us to hold him back. It was almost a familiar comfort, in this strange cab.

"What'd you got to say about it?" the Matron of Honor demanded, fixing me with narrowed eyes and a pursed lip.

"Nothing," I quickly retreated, holding up my hands.

"Who are you anyway? Were you even invited?" she accused.

"Now come on," Maggie said beside me, "Can't you tell that he's Clarence Salterville's son Seymour, the one who grew up in England with his grandmother? Didn't you, dear?" She reached over and gave my knee a squeeze.

I opened my mouth, ready to claim Clarence Salterville as my new father, but the Matron of Honor beat me to it. "He's not Seymour," she said with the same certainty one would usually reserve for their own name. And at that moment, I realized that the Matron of Honor knew exactly who I was, and had perhaps known the second that I set foot in the car.

"He can't be Seymour," she repeated, and went on to explain, "He Floo'd me telling me he missed his Portkey this morning, he caught some sort of stomach flu, and was terribly sorry. Not that I believe a word of it. My guess is he woke up too hungover to bother with the Portkey, that lazy slag."

"Merlin, do you ever stop talking?" the younger man sitting shogun snipped, finally turning around. I caught a flash of yellowed teeth before he turned back to face forward.

She ruffled, but otherwise continued, her voice virtually indomitable. "I would if we ever _got there_. Why've we stopped? What's going on, driver?"

"Traffic, sorry," the driver coughed out.

I looked out the window. She was right; we'd been parked behind the car in front of us for ages. The stoplight was green, but nobody was going. A woman streaked by the car in nothing but rollerblades and a fluorescent rainbow tutu.

"Oh noooo," the Matron of Honor wailed, "Don't tell me it's Bay to Breakers today. We're going to be trapped in here forever. I've got places to be, David - he _needs_ me, I promised I'd be with him every step of this wedding. I promised-"

"Likewise," the younger man in the front said dryly, without looking back.

"Oh shut up Sebastian," the Matron of Honor snarled, body hunched forward as though she was seconds from lunging at him and tearing out his throat. The tension was so high my breath started to come out in quick. Even Maggie was trembling beside me. "I - David's mother, I'm to help -", she said under her breath, wringing her hands together. Only the older gentleman snoozed on, a thin line of drool dripping down the corner of his mouth. I latched on to him as my only beacon of comfort.

"Who are you, anyway?" the Matron of Honor demanded. I looked up and caught her narrowed gaze. I felt Maggie turn to me too, but she was more curious than suspicious.

I measured my words carefully. "I'm on the groom's side."

The Matron of Honor rolled her eyes. "Oh fuck off with the mystery. I know exactly who you are. You're James's horrid brother Albus Severus. You've got different hair but your nose and mouth are exactly the same. And you're just as stupidly secretive. I don't get why it's such a big secret that Harry Potter's your dad, I mean, no one _cares_ anymore, it's been years, and it's not like he's still going around saving the world, he only did it _once_ , who even _cares_ anymore-"

"Harry Potter? Truly?" Maggie breathed, gripping my arm. Even Sebastian in the front turned his head to look at me inquisitively. I grit my teeth. But a part of me almost wanted to laugh. If only everyone in England held my father to the same contempt as this Matron of Honor, then maybe growing up wouldn't have been so terrible.

"My niece has a poster of your dad in her bedroom," Maggie went on, quiet but suddenly appreciative, "You don't think I could - get an autograph?"

"I'm not my dad," I said, but I wasn't as annoyed as I felt entitled to be.

The Matron of Honor snorted and rolled her eyes again. "Don't be fooled by his pedigree, Aunt Maggie. The Potters - they're a horrid lot. David's told me so many _stories._ So many supposed _secrets,_ like, you know that up-and-coming actor, Scorpius Malfoy?"

"He's an absolute darling. So passionate. And so incredibly handsome. I could watch his movies forever," Maggie enthused.

"You know how, when he smiles, the left of his mouth's a little crooked? Just a little?"

"Well, now that you mention it -" Maggie said.

"I think it's charming," Sebastian defended from the front seat.

"Well you wouldn't, if you knew why it's crooked. You'd just be _sad_ , because it's so _sad_ , why," the Matron of Honor said. I tensed. I took a breath to try to calm it. But my heartbeat was taking off without me, because I knew why Scorpius's smile was crooked, and I didn't want anyone else in the car to know, least of all the Matron of Honor.

"It's because your precious James Potter threw a rock at him so hard when they were young that he had to get it _stitched up_. Eight whole stitches! He never smiled the same again," the Matron of Honor said, and watched triumphantly as the words sunk in.

" _No_ ," Maggie responded, aghast. Then she turned to me, as though imploring me to deny it.

"Of course it's true! Why would David lie about something like that?" the Matron of Honor snapped.

"We'd grown up together," I said softly. It was a watered-down version of the truth. The truth was that Scorpius had been my dearest friend up until I moved out of San Francisco. We'd met one weekend in my first year at Hogwarts. Jamie and I had been chasing around a snitch. Scorpius saw us from his fourth floor bedroom window, and had shot quills at us until Jamie had flown up to him and dragged him screaming out onto his broom. It was all so horrendously fun that it was only natural for us to continue flying up to his window for every faire-weathered weekend and also weekdays and weeknights and so on and so forth until soon he was coming through to Godric Hollow and we were going to Malfoy Manor for holidays and summers. Back then I couldn't imagine doing anything without those two. But now I'd gotten used to doing things alone.

"I don't believe it," Maggie said.

"Why's it so hard to believe? I knew James was horrid as soon as I met him. He's got that - that look that he gives you, like you're not even there when he's talking to you. And he just - talks and talks and talks, about _nothing_ , really, nothing important anyway, always about some rot he read in some book, and goes on like he's looking right through you, and then when you finally get something in to say, he just _laughs_ at you. He's the most selfish man on this Earth, I swear to Merlin. I wouldn't mind if he fell off his broom and _died_ just so he could leave us all alone."

"You don't know anything," a voice said shakily.

All eyes looked at me. Because it was my voice.

I looked down at my lap where my sweat had started dripping on my slacks. My whole body was trembling. Nobody said anything.

Finally, the Matron of Honor said, "Merlin - I'm _dying_ in here. I can't, I just _can't_ anymore." She threw an arm over her forehead, nearly elbowing her husband in the face. "Let's get out here. We can stop there - at Bi-Rite, get some ice creams, cool down. And maybe they'd have a Floo I could call from."

"That sounds nice," her husband said. Sebastian in the front unbuckled his seat belt in agreement.

"You come too," the Matron of Honor shouted at me as her husband pulled down the middle row. He shook the elderly gentleman awake, and we all helped him out of the car.

***

Bi-Rite had a line out its door that wrapped around the block. There were so many people trying to get in that they weren't even letting people inside, to buy groceries. But the cab had already u-turned and left, so we were stuck.

"Stuck," the Matron of Honor bemoaned. "Stuck!"

"I've a flat two blocks from here. I mean - it's James's. We can stop there, and we have a Floo, you can call from that, if you want," I heard myself volunteering up the old flat that I'd lived in with James for that brief year after the divorce. I still kept around the key, as though I'd known that despite our silence I'd walk back into James's life uninvited, like this.

"Won't he be there?" the Matron of Honor wrinkled her nose.

"I doubt it," I said. It wasn't like James to sulk and hide. He was probably dragging poor David out to the beach to elope, or something else equally outrageous.

They followed me down the block. On the walk up the steps of the Victorian, I had a brief flash of panic that Jamie had changed the locks, or put up wards, or something else to keep me out, but the key turned, and I let the motley crew in.

I busied myself with airing out the flat. I opened the living room door, and the guest bathroom. There was a thin layer of dust everywhere that I Vanished. On the bathroom sink was a book, still open, as though someone had to leave mid-piss and couldn't've been bothered to close it.

"Anything to drink?" I said to the group gathered in the living room.

"Anything cold, please. Negronis?" Sebastian requested optimistically.

"Anything cold, _please_ ," the Matron of Honor repeated with emphasis, "Could you also show me to the Floo? A private one if possible, please. I _must_ call up David, or at the very least his mother-"

"There's a Floo in the bedroom," I said, walking back down the hallway. My hand paused on the doorknob before twisting it open. I wasn't sure what to expect. But the room was exactly the same as I had left it. Two twin sized beds pushed against opposite walls of the room, identical nightstands beside them. In between was a moderately sized fireplace. I'd forgotten how it was exactly like our room growing up in Godric Hollow. I don't think at that time we realized what we were imitating when we'd set up this room. We hadn't even thought about how strange it was for two grown brothers to share a room when there was another empty room just down the hall, because of course that room would have been for Scorpius, for when he visited from Los Angeles.

I suddenly felt the urge to shield the room from the Matron of Honor's prying eyes. But she'd already settled in front of the fireplace. She looked back at me. "I'm sorry, but could I bother you to step out?"

I nodded. My eyes fell on a leather bound notebook peeking out of the half-packed valise at the foot of Jamie's bed. I looked up at the Matron of Honor again. She was busying herself with the Floo powder. I snuck the notebook under my arm, and left the room, shutting the door behind me.

I walked to the bathroom and locked the door. Then I looked down at the notebook shaking in my hands.

My brother.

I sat down on the rim of the clawfoot bathtub and flipped to a random page.

"Match went well today. Met up with David after for drinks. Don't particularly remember what we talked about but I enjoyed his grey eyes, and the gentle underside of his wrists that he lets me hold across the table. He's gentle with me in the way no one else ever has been."

I flipped forward. "Had an argument with David today. He says he wished I loved his mother enough to not skip out on lunch with her. I told him that I love his mother plenty, and I would have shown up, if the trees in Alamo Square hadn't asked me to sit under their shade. But it must've been the wrong thing to say because he said, 'How can I ever compete with trees' and when I asked him what he meant, he grew withdrawn."

"David asked about my family again. I told him as much as I could because he gets rather upset when I don't. But then he asked why I didn't invite them to our wedding, and I asked him to please stop asking, because he knew what I'd say. I don't know how to tell him that I love him precisely because he isn't my past. That if I wanted my past I wouldn't be marrying him. But instead he insisted we watch the new Scorpius movie and the past caught up with me anyway."

I gripped the notebook so hard I could hear the binding crack as I tried desperately not to sick up.

The past. I was so lonely running from my past.

Scorpius had been my best friend, and I thought he was James's best friend too. At Hogwarts Jamie had been chummy with most - a real arms-around-the-shoulder kind of Weasley - but he'd treated Scorpius differently. For the most part we’d get along swell. But once in a blue moon, Jamie would throw a fit and tackle Scorpius to the ground. He'd burn up his essays. He'd throw rocks at his face hard enough that even dittany couldn't undo the crook. And yet every time he'd do something awful, I'd try and corner Scorpius, demanding him to tell Professor Slughorn, Headmistress McGonagall, anyone, anyone so Jamie would’ve _stopped_ , but Scorpius had always just smiled and said it was fine, and that Jamie only did it because he loved him, which made no sense at all. It got so bad one year that I punched Jamie and then he'd punch back and then I went for his neck and we both got sent to detention for a month, which solved nothing, except when Scorpius had shown up halfway during the month, and then it wasn’t so bad.

Until the year after the divorce.

I'd gone on a run around the Panhandle and walked in on their fight in my sweaty running shorts. James had his hands on Scorpius's shoulders, but his face told me that he wanted to punch him. When Scorpius saw me, he wretched himself out of James's grip and pushed past me out the door.

"What happened?" I had asked James then.

"Our - our dads."

Our dads had just announced that they were "together" all over the Daily Prophet.

"Who cares what Dad does these days? Fuck him," I had said. But Jamie's face had crumbled then, and that's when I knew that he'd been hooking up with Scorpius behind my back.

"Fuck you," I had yelled at him. It was one thing to get back at our parents for the divorce by moving to America. It was another to get Scorpius involved, to drag him into the tire fire that was our family. And then I had packed and left him there on the sofa with dirty tear tracks running down his cheeks.

I'd tried chasing down Scorpius after, but when he wouldn't talk to me either, my resentment toward James only grew. He'd cost me my best friend.

Soft hands knocked on the bathroom door. I snapped the notebook shut and jerked back to the present.

"You ok in there?" Sebastian's voice floated through the door.

"Y-Yeah," I said. I stood up and hid the journal in the laundry hamper before opening the door.

"I'll get the drinks now," I told him before he could ask me any more questions. I walked past the bedroom door - the Matron of Honor was still talking loudly - and made my way to the kitchen. I charmed together ice, found a bottle of unopened Campari on the top shelf, a handle of gin on the bottom, and put together a pitcher of negroni. I levitated it and a stack of glasses out to the living room.

"Oh thank Merlin," the husband muttered from the sofa, snatching the pitcher out of the air.

I poured a glass for Maggie and took it to her. She stood facing the wall with the set of photographs we'd put up in our first week here. She was looking at a photo of all of us - the entirely Potter-Weasley-Granger clan - in the backyard at Godric Hollow, getting ready to play our annual game of Christmas Quidditch. You could’ve swept every inch of England with the number of brooms that we held in hand.

She pointed at a child in particular. "Who's this? I've never seen a more beautiful child," she asked.

"It's Scorpius," I said, and then I rambled on, unable to stop myself, "We'd met in Hogwarts. He wasn't the greatest on the broom. He got distracted and fell off half the time. But it didn’t matter because James was there to catch him every time. He fell off so often I've sometimes suspected that he did it on purpose. I - sorry, am I boring you?"

"No, no, go ahead," she encouraged.

"I'd always been good at flying. But James, when he flew, it was like it was the only time he was actually moving. It was all just so natural for him to fly. Do you know that feeling?"

"I can't say I do," Maggie said. I could tell then that she'd only been listening so that she would know when she could speak next. "Say, Sebastian -" she called over, "Doesn't he - doesn't he remind you of someone?"

Sebastian walked over.

"I reckon you'd recognize him from the movies," I said, annoyed. But Sebastian only hummed and leaned in to look closer.

"I can't quite place it," Sebastian said after a beat, "But I know what you mean."

"Doesn't he look rather like our David, when he'd been that age?" Maggie said.

Sebastian took a step back and clasped his hands together. "I see it."

I didn't see it. I'd never met David before. But suddenly I knew. 

I staggered to the sofa and sat down. The husband filled my glass, and I drained it like water.

The Matron of Honor burst in the room then, brimming with news. "They've decided to elope instead. So we're to wait for them at the reception. Nobody's ecstatic, but at least it's getting done," she said. She clapped her hands together twice. "Let's go, then!"

"What about you, dear?" Maggie asked as she braced herself on my arm while sliding on her sensible platforms.

"I'll catch up," I said, "I've some things to finish up in the flat."

"Alright, don't take too long," she said.

"Thanks for the drinks," Sebastian said as he passed through the door.

"Yes, thank you!" the Matron of Honor shouted back, already halfway down the steps.

I closed the door behind me. And then I was alone, again. I collapsed on the sofa and closed my eyes to wait.

***

I stood up at the sound of someone pushing the front door open. I walked to the living room door and peered down the hallway. It was James.

"Al!" he exclaimed.

"Lily sent me," I explained before he could ask.

"Oh." He winced. "Sorry - I've made a proper mess of the ceremony, haven't I?"

"It's alright," I said, calm for the first time in years.

"They’re downstairs waiting for me. I'm just getting some things before we make things official," he said.

I regarded him with a cool look. The bright afternoon light shone behind him, giving him a sort of unearthly glow. I couldn’t make out his face, but it didn’t matter because I knew what he looked like. "No, you're not. You're not going to go back down. You're not going to get married." I said, gaining confidence with every word. I _knew_ James. I knew him. I knew what he'd do.

"You're right, I'm not," Jamie said, frowning. He closed the door behind him, and took off his shoes. He walked down the dark hallway toward me until I could see the light freckles splayed under his eyes. His auburn hair was a tangled mess; he looked like he'd rolled around on the grass.

“It’s okay. I’d expected as much anyway.”

“You did?”

“Yeah," I said.

I took a deep breath. I had a lifetime to think about in the last hour. The looks James used to slide over Scorpius before he'd wrestle him to the ground. Why it mattered that our dads were dating. Why David was a dead ringer for Scorpius. I'd thought he'd messed with Scorpius just to get back for the divorce. But I'd been wrong.

I said, "He's not Scorpius."

Jamie's face twisted in anger. He moved his hands up as though to strike me, but instead they fell on my shoulders. I reached around his waist and closed the distance between us. I asked, “Where is he?”

I felt a wetness on my shoulder. “I haven't seen him since his dad and our dad - you know. He thought it wouldn’t be right“

“Fuck them,” I said with all the bravado of being eighteen again.

He drew back to look into my eyes. "Yeah?" he said, hesitant.

"Yeah, fuck them," I said. I stepped back. "Hurry up and pack, then. We're going to chase Scorpius down. Have you got a car? Never mind - we can fly out from the fire escape. You've brooms, at least?"

"I - yes," he said. He looked at me curiously. "Why are you helping me?"

Because I should have known that James was in love with Scorpius, that he’d been in love with him his whole life, almost. Because I should have helped him chase him down five years ago. Because I was done with being lonely, and I wanted my brother back, and I wanted my best friend back too.

"Just fucking shut up and get packed," I said instead.

He laughed, heading down the hall. And then I knew that he knew me, too.


End file.
